What Is Affiliate Marketing About? Learn The Basics!

When I first became interested in ways I could potentially start generating an income online, I saw the term “affiliate marketing” thrown about a lot and – at first – I had absolutely no clue what it meant!

What Are Affiliate Networks?

There are many companies that house various affiliate programs – these arecalled affiliate networks.

Think of it a bit like giant store for affiliate programs – you search for the company or product you’re looking to promote, then you apply to them to become an affiliate.

The companies can also search for affiliates and invite you to join their programs.

The affiliate network will also get their cut too of course and so, the percentage of your commission can be low.

but this is just a price you have to pay to get accepted on some of these programs and many companies only work through affiliate networks.

However, you can see clearly what percentage your commission will be when you search for companies to promote and you can make your decisions as to whether it will be worth it for you or not.

Once you’ve applied, the respective company will consider your application and will either accept you or reject you depending on their own terms and whether they think your website is a relevant fit for them.

Examples of affiliate networks:

What I would say is, look at the sort of companies that have the products you want to promote and then check what affiliate network they are aligned to.

Try and stick to a couple of affiliate networks at first, or else it can get pretty confusing trying to keep track!

Make sure you keep a log of all the companies and affiliate networks you have applied to join.

The benefit with companies like Amazon, is they’re incredibly well known and trusted.

So, conversions may be easier than to sites that are less well known or deemed less trustworthy!

You can also apply to Amazon direct and without the need to apply to an affiliate network, (Ebay is the same in this sense).

Amazon is also pretty easy to get accepted on, in my experience and so, very user friendly for an affiliate newbie.

Take note – some companies will have stronger policies than others.

So, if you apply to a company and your site or blog is incomplete, has broken links or has content totally irrelevant to their product, (e.g. your site is about shoes and you’re wanting to promote flat screen tv’s) then you’re more likely to get rejected.

While, some other sites, really don’t care about the content of your site or how relevant it is to them.

I’ve had offers from companies wanting me to promote mobile phones and insurance on a site about arts and crafts, for example!!

Some companies simply want their ads up, where ever they can.

If you don’t want to irritate your audience, I suggest you don’t stick up irrelevant ads. Keep your ads suitable to your website or blog and they will convert much better.

So, if you already have a website or blog and are looking to start money from it – affiliate marketing is a good place to begin.

I would suggest simply signing up with Amazonat first and go from there.

While Amazon has thousands up on thousands of products, it may still be that Amazon still doesn’t have suitable products for your niche or topic of your site.

If you’re not sure if Amazon is the right fit, leave me a comment below and I’ll advise you.

The PROS VS CONS of Affiliate Marketing:

PROS

Newbie friendly. If you sign up to the Amazon affiliate program, they have a guide explaining exactly how you add your links and banners to your website, so it’s fairly straight forward to get started.

No physical selling involved – someone else deals with all the packaging, posting and cash transactions, you just pick up the money at the end.

Free to join – you do not need to invest any money to get started and so can effectively start to make money for free.

You can work from anywhere, so if you’re planning on travelling or moving abroad, there is a possibility for you to generate an income from anywhere in the world.

A huge choice of products to promote – your choice is really limitless, there are literally countless companies that have affiliate programs now. Whatever you can think of, there is likely to be an affiliate program available for it somewhere.

Once you’ve built up your website, you may have hundreds of pages promoting hundreds of products within your website and you could be earning commission from people clicking through those links day and night – with very little maintenance on your part.

CONS

Competition can be fierce. If you just have a little blog or website that isn’t generating much traffic, your chances of generating a decent income from affiliate marketing is….zero.

It can take a long time! In a competitive niche, it can take many months before you see any sales at all, let alone a consistent income.

You’ll be up against people who have an advanced knowledge of SEOtechniques, (Search Engine Optimization) and know how to drive traffic to their sites and rank highly in the search engine.

If you’re not ranked highly in the search engine, (or alternatively, don’t have a huge social media following and generate traffic that way) you will not generate enough traffic organically to make decent money with affiliate marketing.

In fact, I have seen first hand people spending thousands and thousands of dollars trying to profit with paid traffic and losing it all.

If your website or blog is not generating enough traffic when you begin this journey in affiliate marketing, it will take some time before you start making money and you will need to learn how generate traffic to your site.

This will be frustrating at first, but plenty of affiliate networks also have forums where you can talk to people about issues you’re having, share tips, or just chat with people in the same boat!

Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick option by any means, but nothing is. If you put the work in, there is money to be made.

If you don’t have a website and want to start learning about affiliate marketing and how to profit from it – join me online here!

They have a free 10 part coursefor starter members and two free websites, with hosting, which is also included.

They teach you everything you need to know in order to start generating a profit from affiliate marketing, creating a website dedicated to any topic or interest you like.

Do you think you get the affiliate marketing basics now?

Are you thinking of giving it a go? Leave me a comment below and I will get back to you!

Reader Interactions

Comments

What a great description of what Affiliate Marketing is all about. I use all the networks you mentioned. I just don’t use them enough as I’m stuck writing content and reviews and not spending enough time promoting products and services.
Anyone reading this will find it very valuable and help with their online education.
Thanks for this, really well done!
Peter

Hi Peter, many thanks for your comments! It can get quite confusing when you sign up to a bunch of affiliate networks and then have to keep track. I’m pleased you find the article useful. It can be greatly time consuming initially building up your site first, but it’s great to look back and see all the hard work you’ve achieved. Many thanks! Natalie

I have a question I am new in affiliate marketing and want to launch my own website and I am looking over for affiliate platforms to get started but I could’t conclude yet to whom I may take a start with as there are many platforms available in the market, could you help me in this respect?

I am thinking to make an affiliate website like coupons or cashback because I have some basic information about these affiliate marketing types and now I wanna make a website on one of them. One of my friend recommend me revglue’s revembed technology ” revglue.com/blog-detail/5-how-to-setup-a-uk-discount-voucher-website-in-ten-minutes ” for this purpose and its a UK base registered company and providing data from UK’s affiliate networks but i am little confused while using it because its a new website. If anyone have experience with it.

Do you have a short list of different platforms? Personally, I started at WA, which teaches you how to get started with affiliate marketing and they do have some free training you can sign up for as well.

Is it training you’re looking for, or particular affiliate networks to sign up with? What affiliate network you go with, will depend on your niche. As you’re looking into coupons and so on, I imagine you’ll be wanting to look for CPA networks, such as Panthera network, or Maxbounty.

However, while I’ve looked into various cashback/coupon type sites, I’m not familiar with how to set one up! So, in that regard, I cannot really advise on how you can get started with that specifically, or how easy it would be to achieve.

Unless you’re relying on having a blog attached to the site, where you can rank content in google and be found organically, I’m guessing you would have to rely on paid traffic.

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